CHAPTER EIGHT
Elena stared at the frozen frame on her phone…the smile on Jax's face as he took the flash drive from the woman on the balcony was not the smile he gave her.
It was colder, practiced, the kind reserved for cameras and deals signed in shadows.
She didn't throw the phone. She set it down carefully, like it might explode if handled wrong.
Jax hadn't moved. He stood there in the middle of his living room, hands at his sides, looking like a man watching his house burn and knowing he had lit the match.
"Say something," she whispered.
He swallowed. "It's real."
The words landed like a slap she'd been expecting but still felt.
Elena turned away, walked to the window. The city lights blurred through the glass. "How long?"
"Three weeks before the dinner. After the statement went out…They approached me the next night saying they had proof that i have broken an old non-disclosure from my first big contract.
Something about creative differences on a project I walked away from. They could make it look like I'd stolen ideas, tank endorsements and kill future roles.
All they wanted was one meeting. One handover. They said it was insurance."
"Insurance," she repeated flatly.
"They wanted dirt on you. Anything they could use later. I gave them nothing useful…just old emails, nothing incriminating. I thought if I played along long enough, I could figure out who 'they' really were. Then Victoria got arrested, and I thought it was over. I cut contact."
Elena laughed once, a hollow sound. "You thought wrong again."
She turned back to him. "You smiled in that video."
"I was acting. They had a camera. I had to sell it."
"You're good at that," she said quietly. "Selling things."
The accusation hung between them.
Jax took a step forward. She held up a hand.
"Don't."He stopped.
She picked up the flash drive Mia had given her, turned it over in her fingers. "This one has proof Luke was dirty… payments and timestamps….A call where he mentions 'the next phase'...something about my father's company.
If you were really trying to protect me, why didn't you tell me about any of this? The balcony…the handover even the smile."
"Because I was ashamed." His voice cracked on the last word.
"I thought I could fix it quietly. Clean it up before it touches you again. I didn't want you to look at me the way you're looking at me right now." he said
"How am I looking at you?" she asked
"Like I'm just another liar in a long line of them."
She felt tears prick, and hated them. "You're not…you're worse because I believed you were different.
Silence stretched until it hurt.
Then her phone buzzed again..the same unknown number.
She didn't want to look. But she did.
Another video. Shorter this time.
The footage was from inside Jax's apartment tonight… Through the window she was standing in front of right now.
It showed her setting the phone down. Jax standing frozen.
The moment she'd said, You smiled in that video.
The camera angle was high…across the street, maybe from the building opposite.
Text overlaid the clip:
He's not the only one who knows how to act. Keep digging, Elena. You might not like what you find about yourself.
Her blood turned to ice.
She spun toward the window. The building across the street was dark, windows like blank eyes. No movement. No light.
"They're here," she whispered. "Right now."
Jax crossed to her in two strides, pulled her away from the glass. "We need to leave."
"Where? They know where you live. They know where I live. They know everything."
"Not everything." He grabbed his keys from the counter.
"There's a place…no one knows about it. Not even my agent.
I bought it in cash last year, off-grid. Up north, outside the city.
We are going there. We plug in Mia's drive, see what's really on it. We figure out who's left pulling strings."
Elena looked at him..with a "really" look. The man who had stood in front of her father and promised to earn her. The man who'd just admitted to handing over a flash drive to people trying to destroy her.
"I don't know if I can trust you to drive," she said.
He nodded slowly. "Then you drive..I will sit at the back..phone off. No stops unless you say."
She studied him for a long beat.
Then she nodded once.
They moved fast…lights off, elevator avoided, stairs down to the underground garage.
Jax's car was parked in the far corner, covered with a tarp he'd never mentioned before. He pulled it off without a word.
Elena slid behind the wheel. Jax got in the passenger seat…no argument about who drove. He kept his hands visible on his knees.
She started the engine. The garage lights flickered as they pulled out.
No black SUV waited at the exit.But as they merged onto the empty midnight freeway heading north, Elena's phone…still in her pocket..vibrated once. She ignored it.
Until it vibrated again and again.
She pulled over at the first rest stop, twenty miles out. The engine was running and the doors were locked.
She took out the phone.
Three new messages from the unknown number:
First: a single photo.
Her father leaving his office building that afternoon alone…unaware of the lens
Second: a short video clip. Thirty seconds. Her father in his study at home..talking on the phone.
The camera zoomed in on his desk…papers scattered, a red folder open. The label was visible for half a second before he closed it.
Project Eclipse – Contingency Transfer
Third message: text only..saying… Tell Jax to stop pretending he doesn't know what Eclipse or your father wakes up tomorrow to find his entire board has seen the red folder too.
Elena's hands shook so badly she nearly dropped the phone.
She looked at Jax.
He was staring straight ahead, jaw locked, eyes glassy.
"You know what Eclipse is," she said. It wasn't a question.
He closed his eyes for a second then opened them.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I do."
The rest stop lights buzzed overhead.
A single pair of headlights appeared in the distance…slow and deliberate coming their way.
They didn't move.
The car passed without slowing.
But Elena knew.
They weren't alone on this road.
And whatever Jax was about to tell her next might be the thing that finally broke them for good.